"They" would be Jacksonville Naval Hospital, one of whose surgeons frantically called Jennifer Backman (author of the above statement) hours after her hernia surgery and told her that "someone" had broken protocol and that "contaminated instruments" had been used. In the year before her surgery, JNH had settled $71m worth of lawsuits over shoddy work. She's had some unspecified complications, feared others, and is suing for $5m, but luckily for her, the previous patient seems fairly clean. [Florida Times-Union]
Another Judge Who Probably Grew Up Afraid of His Daddy
Yesterday, Judge Ric Howard of Inverness gave a severely-inept 19-yr-old (who started a fire at a rec center because he was bored) the 10-yr maximum (stunning the prosecutor), and 10 more concurrently for having consensual sex with his 15-yr-old girlfriend, because, the judge said, "[W]hen he's caught, he stands up and says sorry [but] as soon as he walks out that door, he gives me the high hard one. No! He goes to prison today" [St. Petersburg Times]
We're Number 1!
Let's see, Gator football 4th, Gator basketball 2nd É but, according to the U.S. Justice Dept., "South Florida" (Key West up to Sebastian, just north of Vero Beach) saw more federal official corruption convictions in the last 10 yrs than any other jurisdiction (Chicago 2nd, Washington, D.C., 3rd, NYC 4th). (In a state corruption case yesterday, City Commissioner Terence Pinder of Opa-Locka was arrested at City Hall and charged with misuse of city credit cards and filing a false campaign document. He was not charged for the additional tacky things he did like pretending on his parking space that he is "Dr. Pinder" or falsely claiming he was a playah at hip-hop Slip-and-Slide Records in Miami Beach.) [Palm Beach Post] [Miami Herald]
Beggin' for Trouble in Cross City
The Dixie County Commissioners unveiled a 6-ton slab containing the Ten Commandments to sit at the front of the courthouse in Cross City and dug in for a fight, in that a former county attorney has volunteered to take on any church-state-separation lawsuits free of charge. The U.S. Supremes pretty consistently say that things like this (less historical than religious) are unconstitutional. The main problem with the Ten Big Ones is, of course, numbers I-IV [from Exodus 20:1-17], about slavishly worshiping God. That is, V-X (honoring mom 'n' dad, not killing people, etc.) are pretty good rules to live by. [Gainesville Sun]
Errorors-Oops, Errors
Yr Editor misread the story on Monday [The F State, 11-27-2006] about the young woman who "proved" she was ready for gang work by accidentally killing her "brother-in-law." The victim was actually her stepbrother.
More Things To Worry About Today
An accused 15-yr-old sex predator (of 2- and 3-yr-olds!) was sent back to his kiddie-friendly Palm Bay neighborhood home because local detention centers were full [WKMG-TV (Orlando)] É Ms. Taneisha Story (of course, you probably know her better as "Tweety Bird") was arrested in Oakland Park and charged with shoplifting 12 packs of hair (human) from a beauty supply house [South Florida Sun-Sentinel] É Oops-An employee making an AmSouth bank-deposit run in Orlando accidentally dropped his own magic baggie of you-know-what into the money baggie [WESH-TV (Orlando)] É Jose Antonio Llama filed a complaint with police, claiming that an anti-Castro lobbying group in Miami ran through $1.5m of his in an overthrow plot (but Fidel's still there!) [Associated Press via WTSP-TV (St. Petersburg)] É They're pretty simple in Levy County, where Judge Joe Smith signed a warrant, and John Jones got arrested, for possession of gopher tortoises [Gainesville Sun] É High school quarterback Conner Kempe lost control of his kiteboard off Jupiter Beach, flew inland, and inadvertently ran his own post pattern headfirst into a sidewalk (and was given last rites at the hospital but somehow recovered) [Palm Beach Post]É Not as bad off is Garrett Karp, who plays high school soccer in Brooksville, where he still takes headers despite the 10 staples in his noggin from an earlier game (and yes, it hurts when he does that, very much) [St. Petersburg Times].
This article appears in Nov 29 – Dec 5, 2006.